Chapter 8.2, Problem 18P

In Problems 13-19, assume that the population of x values has an approximately normal distribution.

Hospitals: Charity Care What percentage of hospitals provide at least some charity care? The following problem is based on information taken from State Health Care Data: Utilization. Spending, and Characteristics (American Medical Association). Based on a random sample of hospital reports from eastern states, the following information was obtained (units in percentage of hospitals providing at least some charity care):

57.156.253.066.159.064.770.164.753.578.2

(a) Use a calculator with mean and sample standard deviation keys to verify that $\mp =62.3\%$ and $s=8.0\%$.

(b) Find a 90% confidence interval for the population average $\mu$ of the percentage of hospitals providing at least some charity care.

(c)Interpretation What does the confidence interval mean in the context of this problem?